“How awful,” said Bee, glancing at Kemal.
“A maze of mirrors will always confound the Hunt,” the headmaster went on. “I rescued Kemal by this means, but I had found him too late. He had spent so many years in a human body believing himself human that he was too old to learn how to change.”
Kemal stared at his hands as if trying to pretend we were not talking about him.
“Your Excellency, just now on the shore, I saw one turn into a hawk and fly away,” I said. “What will happen to it?”
“It will live a hawk’s life and die a hawk’s death. It is impossible to find those of our children who are lost in this way. These examples illustrate how important it is that we be the ones who greet our own children and welcome them to this world. If they do not know we are what they can be, then they will never know and are lost to us regardless.”
“Can the rest of you change shape at will?”
“Yes. All except Kemal.”
“Then why do you live in human form, Your Excellency?” Bee asked.
“As your kind spread across the lands and began to discover our young ones and kill them out of fear, we discovered our best camouflage was to walk in the world in human form, and to live among you.”
“How do they know whether to be male or female?” I asked.
His smile reproved me. “It is not the same for us as with humankind. When we hatch in the spirit world and swim in the Great Smoke, we are grubs, neither male nor female. When we come ashore in the mortal world, we become male.”
“How do you breed and produce nests, then, if you are all male?” Bee demanded.
“Would I ask you such a intimate question? Do not presume to ask it of me.” The brown of his eyes flashed with the spark of emeralds, as if his control of his human shape was slipping. He spoke in an edged tone I had never before heard from the man who had famously not once lost his temper at the academy. “I am weary, and growing restless. Is there some favor you came to ask that you believe I can help you with?”
Bee twisted her hands together. Her hesitation surprised me, as did the way she chewed on her lower lip as if nerving herself to speak.
“Your Excellency.” Maestra Lian appeared at the door. “They are clothed and settled in the upstairs room for safety. A fifth claimant has arrived.”